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Fraud*According to the Collins English Dictionary 10th Edition fraud can be defined as: "deceit, trickery, sharp practice, or breach of confidence, perpetrated for profit or to gain some unfair or dishonest advantage".[1] In the broadest sense, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation. Defrauding people or entities of money or valuables is a common purpose of fraud, but there have also been fraudulent "discoveries", e.g. in science, to gain prestige rather than immediate monetary gain*As defined in Wikipedia

Monday, December 12, 2011

We don't hear much about the Occupy movement anymore. Media seems to avoid it and that old saying "out of sight - out of mind" prevails. Yet while not in main stream media - on air or in many newspapers - the internet, especially HuffPost continues to cover it.

This link contains several stories that are worth reading. The reality is that "the people" seem to be in favor of the Occupy movement. In fact, you will see that an entire community from the Mayor to the Chief of Police in a small California town are supporting the movement.

Occupy Our Homes Gains Support Near A Foreclosed House In Brooklyn

More from HuffPost and Janet Tavakoli:

Wealthy Patriots Wage Class War

A strange thing happened in Chicago on Thursday, December 8. An audience of well-heeled professionals, a mixture of Democrats and Republicans, packed a room at the Drake Hotel to hear Robert Shiller, a Yale professor, give a presentation on the housing market. A few members of the audience were in the top 1%, and the balance of the audience was probably in the top 2%-5%. At the end of the presentation, there was a bi-partisan revolt.

Fraud "Blind Spot"

...Shiller's speech was 2 ½ years after I appeared on C-Span talking about the many aspects of widespread interconnected mortgage fraud that damaged the global financial markets.

.... His speech was also months after widespread reports of robo-signing of affidavits and other types of foreclosure fraud.

... The Yale professor's speech was just four days after 60 Minutes blew open widespread loan origination fraud at Countrywide...

...Shiller's talk was the day after former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was sentenced to 14 years in prison after his corruption conviction.

...Shiller spoke on the same day that Jon Corzine, former CEO of bankrupt firm MF Global (former Democratic Governor of New Jersey, former Democratic Senator from New Jersey and former CEO of Goldman Sachs), testified before Congress that he had no intention to break the rules but he just doesn't know what happened to an estimated $600 million to $1.2 billion of customers' assets.

says Janet Tavakoli: "The first time the word "fraud" was uttered that evening was when I posed my question."

Shiller himself never used "fraud." The most he would say in his so-called response was "some people aren't very nice." Really? It sounded rehearsed, and it struck most people in the audience as a shameful cop-out. If this is what economists are teaching students at universities, students should demand a refund of their tuition. Kindergarten children are given better warnings about strangers with candy.

"Countrywide Broke the Law. Homeowners Did Not."

Even worse Shiller, intentionally or otherwise, distorted my meaning.

Class Warfare
Alumni of the Federal Reserve, corrupt politicians, and willfully blind academics would be correct to say that evening was a case of "class warfare." Well-heeled U.S. patriots declared war on the lack of class demonstrated by their financial peers.

Related articles

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COMMENTS:

Partners in crime
said...

After the hearing, banks began calling our office, afraid that we knew something about their relationship with the Fed. We didn’t, which they quickly realized. But it turns out they had good reason to worry, since they were in fact borrowing trillions.

Senator Judd Gregg, who is now a senior advisor at Goldman Sachs now claiming that he was unaware of the extent of the Fed lending, led the charge on this point. He used the talking point that the public knowing which banks got trillions of dollars from the Fed was tantamount to iron-clad Congressional control of the Fed. It was an absurd argument, but it was what they had. Here’s Gregg.

A growing effort in the House to require periodic audits of the Federal Reserve is little more than “great PR,” one Republican senator stressed Friday.

Reps. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Alan Grayson’s (D-Fla.) effort to subject much of the Fed’s records, communications and decisions to public scrutiny survived a key committee vote this week, and it now over 300 supporters in the House. But Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) told CNBC Friday morning that the amendment was little more than “pandering [to] populism.”

Huh? First, we don’t know exactly what happened. Therefore the CME’s confident claim that it was blameless is premature. Second, it admits the process WAS defective. If the overseer did everything right and you have an MF Global level disaster, the system failed. I’m actually amused at this NewSpeakish formulation “We’ll admit to a damning fact set but maintain everything was fine.”

Now there is a possible out for the CME: that MF Global staff mislead auditors and/or filed inaccurate regulatory reports. Given that the firm unraveled quickly, it would not be fatal to the CME if it were hoodwinked for a while by doctored information. But that in turn would imply a real conspiracy by MF Global staff. So a scenario that is favorable to the CME argues for throwing the book at MF Global.

But back to the bigger picture. Here we have the CME taking a hit in trading volumes, and it acts as if it can just ride it out. I don’t see why customers would or should get over their shell shock quickly. We see the same behavior in the securitization market. Investors know damned well they were had. The FDIC put forward a proposal of reforms in a Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in early 2010 which looked to be a pretty good set of measures designed to get investors back in the pool. But the sell side refused to consider it, and so we remain with pretty much the entire mortgage market on government life support. And the worse is that the media continues to parrot the bank/originator line that it is “market conditions” that are keeping investors away from private label deals, when it is in fact the industry’s own intransigence.

Here the CME does not have (to my knowledge) the prospect of a government guarantee to boost business. And on top of that, futures traders and fund managers are far more aggressive and outspoken than their mortgage brethren, who have been remarkably slow to stand up to abuses. So it would seem to have far less reason than the mortgage industrial complex to be confident that it can stare its customers down.

But maybe I’m out of touch with the zeitgeist. Or perhaps the iron law of institutions is at work, and people at the CME are all working to preserve their posts, with little regard for what it does to the organization. Maybe in this brave new world of rule by banks, not ceding any ground is more important than profit. If you were really paranoid, you might wonder about whether any individuals here were confident a tough stand in this battle would lead to rewards elsewhere.

All I know is that self regulatory bodies can work in the wake of a 1929 level wipeout, when even more than forty years later, securities trading still had an unsavory air about it. That gave industry incumbents a big incentive to embrace tough standards. Now, with members operating almost entirely with other people’s money and looting a widespread phenomenon, the time for firm, outside oversight is long overdue. How we get that with DC largely captured by banks is an open question, but letting the industry mind itself is no longer a desirable option.

Realtors: We Overcounted Home Sales for Five YearsThe National Association of Realtors said a benchmarking exercise had revealed that some properties were listed more than once, and in some instances, new home sales were also captured. "All the sales and inventory data that have been reported since January 2007 are being downwardly revised. Sales were weaker than people thought," NAR spokesman Walter Malony told Reuters. http://www.cnbc.com/id/45659547

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The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the greatest liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth. … H.L. Mencken

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It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime. … Thomas Paine 1737-1809, Anglo-American Political Theorist, Writer

Laws just or unjust may govern mens actions. Tyrannies may restrain or regulate their words. The machinery of propaganda may pack their minds with falsehood and deny them truth for many generations of time. But the soul of man thus held in trance or frozen in a long night can be awakened by a spark coming from God knows where and in a moment the whole structure of lies and oppression is on trial for its life.: Sir Winston ChurchillWhen governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. - Thomas Jefferson

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